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James Welch: A Critical Companion (Greenwood Press, 2004) discusses the five novels of Blackfeet writer James Welch (1940-2003) within the context of his Native American cultural and literary heritage, with an illuminating section on Indians in film. Interview with James Welch, conducted by Mary Jane Lupton, forthcoming in Native American Quarterly 29:1-2, Winter-SPring 2005. Related links about James Welch James Welch: obituary from The Missoulian
Author of 'Fools Crow' battled lung cancer News of his death brought an unsettling silence to his close-knit group of longtime friends, many of whom are also prominent Montana writers. "He was a wonderful man - as a friend, he was absolutely top-notch," said Ivan Doig, author of "This House of Sky." "I believe he was unequaled among the bunch of us centered here in the West." Welch was a master of words and nuance, and with that skill he could capture the essence of his characters in the sublime, deceptively simple art of storytelling. " 'Winter in the Blood' is still a book I cite almost anytime I talk about the craft of writing," Doig said. "There is such a rightness and accuracy of the soul that Jim brought out in his writing. "He was quite brilliant." "His death is such a loss to our future," said Bill Bevis, a University of Montana professor emeritus, author and expert on Western literature. "A lot of great writers, including great Western authors such as Wallace Stegner did their best work in their 60s," Bevis said. "Jim Welch is a very important Native American novelist who was always changing and writing different kind of books - and there was no telling what he was going to do next." Bevis said he will long mourn the passing of his dear friend and neighbor, with whom he often dined. "It's just awful," he said. "This is such a great loss." Born in Browning in 1940 and raised primarily on the Fort Belknap Reservation, the son of a Blackfeet father and a Gros Ventre mother, Welch always wanted to be a writer. When the time came for college, Welch packed off to the University of Montana to study creative writing under the poet Richard Hugo. By his own admission to a Missoulian reporter in 1999, he wrote blandly of sweeping mountains and wheeling seagulls over an ocean he'd never seen. A few weeks into the semester, Hugo pulled him aside for a little chat and challenged him, as Welch recalled, with a question that went something like: "You don't know anything about poems, do you?" "I sat for a moment trying to think up a defense for my story, but nothing came to me, so I said, 'No,' " Welch recalled at the time. "To my surprise, Hugo said, 'That's OK. What do you know about?' " When he couldn't answer, Hugo asked him about his life and where he grew up. And when Welch finished telling his life's story and describing his life - a world most Americans know nothing about - Hugo responded: "Go ahead, write about the reservation, the landscape, the people." And he did. Welch wrote about what it means to be an Indian in modern American society. He wrote about the people of the West without glorification, without cliche in an honest, clear voice from an intimate perspective, Doig said. He polished his skill and refined his art into clean-cut sentences rich with subtlety. Of all the sentences his longtime friend crafted, Doig said, one from "Winter in the Blood" remains a favorite. It describes a guy's work style when confronted with piling hay bales: "He had learned to give the illusion of work, even to the point of sweating as soon has he put his gloves on, while doing very little." "(Welch) had paid such close attention to language and imagery," Bevis said. "When 'Fools Crow' came out in the early 1980s, it was nothing anyone had read before. It was such a sweeping historic epic and it enlarged our country's imagination." Welch did again it when he wrote "Killing Custer," and retold the story of the famous battle through the Indian perspective, without ever really telling of the battle. Said Bevis of its magic: "It is wonderfully sly and subversive." With each book came more accolades, a growing fan club and an international following that led to speaking invitations across Europe. In France, Welch's work garnered such a robust following it demanded his works be translated into French. By 2000 even the French government could not ignore his impact and honored him with a medal of the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Art et des Lettres - the Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters. Along with the medal, came the official status of knight and a title other than author - "Sir." Despite his success, Welch remained a kind, thoughtful man who loved his home in the Rattlesnake he shared with his wife, Lois, and his golden retriever, Ned, said Ripley Hugo, Welch's neighbor, friend and widow of his mentor. He will always be remembered for his wonderful sense of humor and his great storytelling at dinner parties, she said. "I'll miss the look in his eyes when he would say hello to you and welcome you into his house, and the very direct way he had when he asked a very important question," she said. "He was so steadfast. "His presence was a lovely thing." Reporter Betsy Cohen can be reached at 523-5253 or at bcohen@missoulian.com
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